Drug trafficking charge against Nathan Chasing Horse dismissed

A Las Vegas judge has dismissed a drug trafficking charge against an alleged cult leader accused of sexually assaulting and grooming Native American women and girls.

Public defenders for Nathan Chasing Horse, 46, have filed a petition arguing that prosecutors failed to establish probable cause to imprison him on felony counts that include sexual assault of a minor under 16, sexual assault, kidnapping, open and gross lewdness and drug trafficking.

After a court hearing last week on the petition, District Judge Carli Kierny dismissed the drug trafficking charge on Friday but declined to dismiss the other counts.

Chasing Horse, who is also known for playing Smiles A Lot in the 1990 Kevin Costner film “Dances With Wolves,” was arrested Jan. 31 after police raided his North Las Vegas home, where he lived with up to six women he viewed as wives, according to his arrest report. Two women in Clark County told police they met Chasing Horse as girls at Native American ceremonies and that they were raped by him when they were teenagers, according to the report.

One of the women, who formerly lived with Chasing Horse as his wife, has testified that Chasing Horse raped her when she was 14 and then told her to continue having sex with him so that he could heal her mother’s cancer.

A grand jury indicted Chasing Horse on 19 felony charges in February. Prosecutors have accused Chasing Horse of committing crimes across the United States and Canada while operating a cult known as The Circle.

Defense attorneys have argued that prosecutors failed to show that the alleged victims did not consent to have sex with Chasing Horse. Prosecutors have written in court documents that the alleged victims felt like they could not say no to him.

The judge wrote in an order filed Friday that prosecutors presented enough evidence to the grand jury to establish there was probable cause that the alleged victims did not consent to the assaults, or that the assaults happened when Chasing Horse knew or should have known they “were mentally or physically incapable of resisting or understanding” his conduct.

The drug trafficking charge against Chasing Horse stemmed from 236 grams of psilocin, also known as magic mushrooms, that police said were found in the North Las Vegas home. The drugs were found in refrigerators in the home, where Chasing Horse lived with multiple other people, defense attorneys have argued.

Kierny dismissed the drug charge after agreeing with the defense’s argument that the grand jury was presented with no evidence connecting Chasing Horse to the mushrooms, “as opposed to another person who resided in that home,” the judge wrote in the order.

Contact Katelyn Newberg at knewberg@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0240. Follow @k_newberg on Twitter.